Wednesday, March 17, 2010

THE FUTURE OF FOX NEWS – AT 10:15 P.M. ET: Those on our side have come to depend on Fox News as one of the few outlets where our views get a fair hearing. But will that always be the case?

There have been some disturbing signs in recent days. Fox, of course, is under the control of Rupert Murdoch, pro-American stalwart and something of a media genius. But Murdoch is aging, and it's widely reported that his son, James, who's becoming increasingly powerful in the parent News Corporation, which owns Fox, has views rather different from those of his father. In particular, James has an affinity for the Arab world, despite the fact that freedom of the press doesn't exactly thrive in that culture.

Fox News has received an infusion of Saudi money, primarily from a Saudi prince who spreads money around the United States to buy influence. Fox announced a few weeks ago that its Mideast headquarters would be in Abu Dhabi.

The obvious question is whether these changes will affect Fox's reporting. Several commentators have already noticed, as have I, a subtle change to a more pro-Arab line in some Fox news reports. A report by Amy Kellogg about the Golan Heights last night was particularly disturbing, coming from a reporter who's been reliable in the past. Left out completely, and shockingly, was the fact that the Golan had been used as an artillery platform by Syria to pound villages in Israel proper before Israel seized the Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War. Some of the reporting from Jerusalem has also been leaving out the context that Fox has normally supplied in the past.

How far will this go? Hard to say. But I'm afraid the signs aren't good. Rupert Murdoch will fade away. Money talks. It is frightening to think of the influences that may come into play in the Murdoch empire in the future, an empire that includes Twentieth Century Fox studios, the Times of London, and the The Wall Street Journal. We may find Fox taking the side of the very people who would deny it the freedom to report freely.

So far I haven't seen any anti-American slant creeping into Fox's reporting, but one can legitimately have concerns. James Murdoch is British, but educated in the United States at Harvard, from which he dropped out. His wife works for a Bill Clinton-sponsored organization, the Clinton Climate Initiative.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Two Emirates airlines cabin crew have been ordered jailed for three months in Dubai over sexually explicit text messages, the latest in a string of indecency cases against foreigners, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The pair, an Indian flight attendant and her cabin services supervisor, were convicted of "coercion to commit sin" over the messages and initially sentenced to six months in jail, The National newspaper said on its website, citing court documents.

The sentence was reduced on appeal last week to three months and deportation orders against the pair were lifted, it added. It did not reveal the content of the messages.

Dubai's foreign population has expanded rapidly in recent years as expatriates flocked to the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub for its tax-free earnings and year-round sunshine.

The changes have challenged the Emirati population, which is now vastly outnumbered by foreigners, raising concern that their emirate's rapid pace of growth is a threat to their social and religious identity in what remains a deeply conservative region.

My other question is this. Am I the only person who understands that this is the goal of the Islamic religion? Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Sharia law is the goal and Sharia Law is the only acceptable law.